What does a question require to exist?
I want to know your opinion. What's necessary for a question to exist?
I'll start with what in my opinion is one of the most obvious requirements; a question requires a subject who asks it to exist.
Try to keep it simple (be as concise as possible).
I'll start with what in my opinion is one of the most obvious requirements; a question requires a subject who asks it to exist.
Try to keep it simple (be as concise as possible).
Comments (51)
A question mark?
Is the cat black?
Maps to:
The cat is black (with a truth value of true or false).
That is an over simplification. truth values only have logical meaning in abstract systems.
There are many varieties of 'black' in the real world.
You could use discrete or fuzzy true values:
- The question 'Is the cat is light, medium or dark black?' maps to a trinary kind of truth value.
- 'What are the chances the cat is pitched black?' maps to a fuzzy truth value.
What’s necessary for a question, is an unknown that relates to it. What’s necessary for a question to exist, I suppose, is just the expression of it.
Do you mean a question needs an answer to exist?
Consciousness.
(aka, what is self-awareness.)
I agree. I'd like to ask you, how would you say the unknown relates to the question? How is a question something about what is unknown? Does the unknown act directly on the question or does it act on something else from which the question then arises? (they are all kind of the same question)
I agree with you. I'd like to know why you think questions need self-awareness to exist? what is it in a nascent question which requires self-awareness for such process to exist (to begin; to continue)?
I guess....in the most basic sense, the query presupposes the conception in the subject of the response relates directly to the conception in the subject in the query. The response “the color of the dining room is 14ft”, is incoherent with respect to the question “what color is the dining room?”.
And the Mysterians!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%3F_and_the_Mysterians
Perhaps this is a non answer (I always dislike those) but I suppose having the state or property of existence. Lol. It either does or it doesn't. No observation or reference will change that. A question as a literal object ie. a verbal or written inquiry or a concept? Concepts are more interesting. What if there were no humans here. The question of why are they not exists. Even here and now why aren't there giant firebreathing dragons here for example is a question. Maybe the answer is "because they don't exist", an answered question still "exists" .. or does it?
Good question. It appears that most if not all lower life forms are not self-aware enough to wonder about things and ask questions. The metrics of instinct, versus the intellect in human consciousness, obviously leans toward instinct being subordinate to intellect. And so for whatever reason the intellect that is predominant in human's provides for the ability to ask questions.
This leads to other questions. For example, if self-awareness is the driving force behind the existence of questions, what is the purpose of asking questions? (What is the purpose of self-awareness and intellect?) The ability to ask questions themselves do not appear to offer survival value for lower/higher life forms. Accordingly, instinct and genetically coded emergent properties are all that's needed.
Quoting Daniel
Conservation of energy.
Not necessarily a specific unknown, rather a fuzziness or uncertainty to the information. A question is an expression of potentiality. It presents uncertain or incomplete information as a transferable prediction of effort and attention distribution to complete the potential information.
So the question, “what colour is the dining room?” presents incomplete potential information regarding a particular value - colour - attributed to a particular ‘dining room’. Regardless of whether this specific information is available - ie. whether or not the missing information is ‘unknown’ or unknowable by either the questioner or the questionee - the question itself exists as an expression of missing potential information, to be answered by the questionee relating their subjective experience to the information as presented, and responding with a colour value to complete the information as a shared relation or ‘superposition’ state between them.
Alternatively, the question, “Is the dining room red?” also presents incomplete potential information regarding a particular value - colour - attributed to a particular ‘dining room’. What is missing is not a colour value, however, but rather the questionee relating their subjective experience to the information as presented, and responding with a binary truth value (yes/no - and/or an alternative colour value) to complete the information as a shared relation between them.
Well, that wasn’t simple or concise. Sorry.
If it has not been expressed - even to the self, in the form of thought - can it be defined as a ‘question’?
I am not sure I understand what you are trying to say. I understand you are saying that the question, the unknown which causes the question, and its response are all logically (causally?) related. Is this what you mean? If it is, what is it that judges the quality of their relationship? What is it that says: "this response is not of this question?"
so, no questions without answers?
the effect of the unknown (or anything else) on the body dissipates in the form of ideas?
Anyways, that's not the topic of this discussion. I am asking you what it is in the self awareness of an individual which is required for the existence of questions?
Think of ideas themselves (or wonderment) as part of a metaphysical agency or energy, manifested by or from our natural stream of consciousness. Ideas come to us at random, for us to then pick and choose... .
You are thinking about the idea of an unexpressed question (which is not an unexpressed question but an idea of one), but you are not thinking about the unexpressed question itself. Thinking requires that you communicate something to yourself. If not communicated at least to the self, can a question exist?
Great questions. I think you are referring to what is called the hard problem of consciousness. The common examples include, but are not limited to, the perception of the color red, metaphysical identity/what's it like to be a bat, etc.. This phenomena is similar to the metaphysical nature of conscious existence.
Meaning, it seems this sense of wonderment/metaphysical agency/energy that appears in our stream of consciousness is naturally existential. Questions, originate from our innate sense of wonderment. In short, you become aware of questions through your being self-aware from consciousness.
Do these questions have physical images associated with them as contained in our stream of consciousness? Yes they do. But some don't. Some questions appear as sentient impulses.. And that sentience takes the form of the will; metaphysical will in nature. (Have you read Schopenhauer?)
Not necessarily; it is possible for a question not to have an answer, in which case the question seeking an unknown remains unsatisfied, and logical relation becomes moot. But to be a legitimate question, that is, one for which the answer is both possible and rational, then the one must directly relate to the other.
But a finer point might be that unknowns don’t cause questions necessarily, merely from being an unknown in general. Such is the strictly minor fallacy cum hoc ergo propter hoc, which says because there are unknowns therefore there are questions, which is not always the case. Being coincident with is very far from being causality for.
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Quoting Daniel
As my ol’ buddy Connor MacLeod....you know...the Highlander, says.....there can be only one. In this case, only the inquirer may be the judge.
I don’t agree with that.
*Assuming that that which is not known becomes known as soon as it interacts, directly or indirectly, with the self. You can know something without understanding it.
Answered already.
That reeks of private language...
I was actually thinking, not of a question that had been thought but not spoken, so much as a question that had not been thought.
Ipso fact, its a question.
But the thrust of my point is to show the poverty of the @Daniel's OP; speaking of questions existing or not existing is misguided.
Also, I'd like to read the essay... do you have any digital copies of it?
missing knowledge on the part of the asker and a request for information from someone else.
Also:
When 2 people are arguing it is very often easier to counter someones argument with a question (similar to Jeopardy). Forcing the debate opponent to pump blood to his/her brain to answer the question gives you time to counter their notion (that you don't like). If they answer with a bad answer you can then attack their answer.
This tactic predates Jesus Christ even though this tactic is associated with him. It probably even predates the oldest (supposedly oldest) book in the Bible (Book of Job).
For complex issues its easier to get your debate opponent to mess up in his/her logic if he/she can't nail down the concepts that are apart of the greater picture.
You could say the people involved in the debate are using this tactic because they are gambling (unknown variables) on whether the "opponent" fully understands the issue. If the "opponent" does fully understand the issue thats when the person asking the question might be put in check or check mate.
It all depends on whether the opponent or me or you fully understands the problem. Ofcourse you would agree if you or i fully understand or atleast to a great degree understand the problem its easier to come to the right conclusion.
I believe in absolute truth but i believe it is often hard to come to the right conclusion given Human's short life spans and limited testing abilities.
I do not know what a question is, hence why I want to find all the things that define a question. So far, I believe the most important requirement for a question to exist is a body that is able to detect/perceive/experience change; that is, for a question to become an object of one's mind (to exist in the mind/to appear in the mind), one must be able to distinguish between previous experiences and what is being newly experienced (or what was unknown). More precisely, one must be able to distinguish between what one has experienced in the past and what one just experienced for the first time (a change between what is known and what is not known is perceived). For this, the capacity of memory would be required, and thus memory is also a requirement for the existence of questions.
So, in summary, I'would say a question arises in the mind when the self is affected by a novel experience AND the self is able to tell that it has never had such experience (how?) AND the self is able to communicate such novel encounter (communicate to what? I have no idea-I'd say itself, but how would the self act on itself?) so that in the process of communicating the novel encounter, the question arises.
Another requirement is that which is unknown and which becomes the subject of the nascent question right after it is experienced for the first time, for example.
Like these requirements there are many more (i.e., language, which would be required to communicate the novel experience). Many of you might think these requirements to be obvious, and they are; I mean, there would not be questions if there is nothing unknown, right? Nonetheless, I want to revisit them because I think this "obviousness" hides more than what it lets us see. That's the reason for most of my questions here, tbh. When I ask your opinion is because I believe each of us hides some truth, truth that no one else can access, truth that is as valuable as the one professed by great philosophers.
It’s a result of effort and attention.
2. For a question to exist there has to be desire to approve continuation of pleasurable life flow. Example, child is asking her parent: Mom, is life going to be the same every year? You taking me to kinder garden, I am playing all day, then you taking me home?
Quoting Victoria Nova
What causes the want (the desire) to know?
A question, being a concept, needs a vehicle to be projected into existence and a potency to make the vehicle project it. From "Non Being" it needs a "Being" with "Purpose" to "Become".
Beautiful question. The answer is obvious, a functioning human brain coupled with social knowledge.